Tag: Thoughts

There was a myth I never grew out of until recently. A myth which I wanted to be true. The myth is this: the nightmares we have are brought by the devil’s hand, coaxing us to hell. They come in the form of small particles, dust-like. That’s why, when you wake up with dust on your eyes, make sure to wipe them away with your fingertips and blow.

I’ve long since realized that this is but a myth.

Nightmares are made by the very hands that never leave me, that never fail to catch me.

Nightmares are made by the very mind that never lets me crawl in the dark alone and afraid.

Nightmares are made by the very soul that never once missed a night of whispering lullabies in my ear to guide me to a planet of serenity. Far, so far from here.

I have so many voices in my head, filling up my entire being like a tsunami that doesn’t know where to begin and where to end. I have so many voices in my head and they’re all I know. They’re all I’ve been acquainted with. They’re my best friends, my worst enemies. My guardian angels and the spawns of the devil perched on my shoulder. See, I don’t really know how I stayed afloat after living with a mind that doesn’t know the difference between hell and sanctuary. And I’ve already grown older, maybe a little wiser.

Still, I have so many voices in my head… so I might as well converse with them.

I might as well converse with them.

Ask them why they keep showering atomic bombs atop of my home in the form of words they know would prod holes in the entirety of my being.

Ask them what made them so hateful. So godawful towards me.

Me, who I’ve painstakingly been creating with my own hands. Me, who I’ve learned, unlearned and relearned. Me, who’ve created a universe indestructible by the hands of time and space, by the fists of humans and the laws of nature. I don’t really know why… why the very words that come from me are the ones that threaten my sanity.

These conversations—sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. Danger lurks around the corner, bright eyes staring, body at the ready.

Sometimes their voices are much louder than mine and I am but dirt floating in the wind, a single grain of sand lost at sea. Sometimes they won’t allow me to say anything, throwing paragraphs after paragraphs across my face as if boxers fighting right in front of me. They tell me about my life as if I didn’t live it, as if I wasn’t able to witness it, as if I wasn’t there to see it all, to feel it all. My whole life—and maybe what comes after—they’ve condensed into a thick book that’s just about the bad luck, the choices I wish I hadn’t made, the wrong turns I took without even thinking, all the days when anxiety won me over, just all the grime and the filth, convincing me to stop trying. But my biggest fear is a death without leaving behind a legacy that I’ve built on my own… So there’s that. There’s that.

That’s what’s keeping me alive. Because isn’t life just some game of killing and saving yourself over and over again? But no… No, it isn’t a game. It’s more than that. So much more.

Then there are the days when these conversations work. I shut them up. That’s right… me. I stand up for myself. I tell my story and I tell it with my voice, the voice that resonates within me, begging to feel the air once again.

I do not consider it winning, but I do call it saving myself from pure madness, from the teeth I’ve so carefully placed underneath my own bed, from the swords at ready inside my head. It wasn’t easy to get where I am today, to be who I am right now. It still isn’t easy, it will never be easy. I’ve been running to and from hell, I’ve been going inside and outside of my shell. And I still am. I still am. God, I still am.

But here I am

Breathing

Existing

Living

And sometimes… sometimes that’s all I need.

Sometimes, the fact that I am here is enough for me to rise above these oceans I’ve named after all the voices I converse with.

​It’s hard when your mind is the most complex puzzle you will ever have to solve by yourself. It’s hard when it’s the one that makes everything simple but it’s also the one that keeps on complicating every little bit of your life. It’s hard when it is your safe haven and your own brand of hell. It’s hard when it’s the place you rest your entire being on but it’s also the place that breaks you the most.

​The place I am now doesn’t look like the place I was before. I’m beginning to realize that nothing’s ever the same though it might look like nothing moved, not even you. Because something did, something always does. It’s in the smallest of details, the way you react with more caution than you ever did before. Or the way you look at the world with your eyes a little wider than you did a month ago. Or the way you respond with a little more confidence, a little more honesty, a little more wisdom. You never notice your growth or the changes you’ve made or the people you’ve left behind because of all of this, you just do. And one day, you wake up still believing you’re at the exact same place, still believing that you’re just falling behind everybody else but if that is what you believe to be true, then it shall be your truth.

But this is the truth I wish myself to believe in: in this journey I am in right now, I’ve learned things I wouldn’t have learned elsewhere. True, I’ve made decisions I still regret up to this day. But it is in those choices, microscopic or gigantic, I have grown to be a little bolder, a little wiser and maybe even a little better than who I was before.

I don’t know why you still want to climb inside my head
I know I sound like there are thousand planets residing inside my brain
But, trust me, i get lost in there too much
For much too long a time
Too many mazes, too many traps
Not enough warmth
Not enough beauty
Just spider webs too thick
Light could never shine through

– Valerie

Maybe because I want to know you
Love you
Be with you
Insanity
I have webs too
But ours are art
We don’t make sense
But Together we do.

Elevator
Take me to the arms of the paradise above
The one never given an exact name because human words can never carry the weight of this place
It may never even have been a place
Where wandering spirits roam without maps
No roads taking in the heat of the sun and no stoplights and pedestrian lanes telling you where you should walk and when you should run
Where being lost is being right at home
And, if it is filled with too many spirits

Elevator
Take me to the core of the Earth
Where no spirit dare go
Maybe there is a paradise different and the same
Where being lost means being found
Where left equals right and right equals up then down
Where roads are all there is, stoplights and pedestrian lanes in every corner
But no vehicle around
Maybe this place is “heaven” underneath the crippling earth’s empty lungs
Hidden with details of the land as its crown

Elevator
Take me there
To where no one is around
To where I can find what once was found